


Release

by Elldritch



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Aftercare, Body Swap, F/F, Flogging, Masochism, Mutual Masturbation, Orgasm Control, Praise Kink, Restraints, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:20:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26737270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elldritch/pseuds/Elldritch
Summary: "You’re mad, and I’m horny. It’s perfect."Gideon is still in Harrow's body, and Harrow is in Gideon's. Gideon has a suggestion to relieve some stress which ends up going somewhere she didn't expect.Written for the Kinktober day 1 'Body Swap' prompt, because how could I not do a TLT fic for that?
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 3
Kudos: 101
Collections: Kinktober 2020





	Release

“Look, this is stressful, okay?” Gideon said, and really, 'stressful' was a gross understatement. It had been bad enough when it was just her stuck in Harrow’s body, trying to deal with space bees and awful old lyctors. Now Gideon was still in Harrow's body – but Harrow was also in Gideon's, and that was even worse. 

No matter how Gideon nagged, Harrow would not keep up with her workout regimen, and Gideon despaired for her hard-won muscle definition. Even when Harrow did try, her form was awful, and Gideon ended up telling her to stop, before she injured something.

“I acknowledge the situation is not ideal,” Harrow allowed, “but I don’t know what you propose to do about it.”

“I know exactly two good ways to relieve tension. One of them is fighting, but if I tried to punch you right now, I’d only break your wrist, and seeing you flop my poor body around like you’ve never encountered a muscle before is just painful, so fighting is right out.”

“Which leaves?”

“Well, I did manage to get some new magazines…”

“No! Absolutely not! You will not use my body for your own depraved titillation. I simply will not have it.”

“It’s not like there’s anything down your shirt to get me off anyway! I don’t want to touch _your_ body, and I don’t want you touching mine. But if _I_ touched my body… and you touched yours… well, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s basically just masturbation, right?”

Gideon expected Harrow to dismiss the idea out of hand, but strangely, she seemed to be considering it.

“I want to be clear that I have absolutely no prurient interest in you, or your body.” Harrow said, in the clipped tone she only used when she was fiercely embarrassed. “But the hormones released during orgasm are very effective sleep aids, and I have not been sleeping well in your body. You’re too hot.”

“Damn right I am,” Gideon preened. The only advantage of not being in her body herself was that she could admire it from every angle, no mirrors required. _Holy fuck_ but she was attractive.

“That’s not what I meant. Your internal temperature is too high.”

“We’re _mammals,_ Harrow. As in, warm-blooded? If you had, I don’t know, even one muscle, or a single ounce of body fat, maybe you wouldn’t be so goddamn freezing all the time. I feel like a marshmallow in all these jumpers!” 

And, indeed, without Harrow’s necromancy to keep Harrow’s body warm, Gideon was _always_ cold. The number of layers she’d taken to wearing would have made it a total pain in the butt to get undressed, but Gideon got around this issue by just never taking the clothes off. You could clean clothes in a sonic just as easily as bodies.

“Are we doing this or not? Quickly, before I change my mind.”

Oh, they were doing this. 

***

After some negotiation, and the world’s longest and least-sexy striptease, Gideon and Harrow were lying, naked, next to each other in the bed. Their eyes were averted, and their bodies weren’t touching.

“So, um,” Gideon was suddenly awkward. For all that she’d rationalised the exercise as _basically masturbation,_ she couldn’t deny that it was somewhat different, touching a body she didn’t occupy, even if that body was hers. 

Would everything still work the same? Gideon had long ago figured out exactly what she enjoyed, but was that Gideon-brain enjoying it, or Gideon-body? What if she wasn’t any good?

_Fuck it._

Gideon reached out a hand, realising that she’d accidentally positioned herself so that the arm closest to her body was Harrow’s non-dominant hand - but it had been too awkward getting into the bed in the first place. If she suggested swapping places, Gideon was 90% certain that one or both of them would chicken out altogether, and Gideon would be back to waiting for Sextus and the other nerds to work out how to fix them, before she could get off.

Not knowing how her body would respond, when under Harrow’s control, Gideon decided to start slow. She cupped one of her body’s breasts with Harrow's thin-fingered hand, holding it gently, appreciating the softness, the weight. Her breasts weren’t huge - she was no Coronabeth - but after months spent in Harrow’s body as an honorary member of the tiny-tit brigade, Gideon appreciated her own chest in a way she never had before. 

She ran a thumb lightly over the nipple, and was surprised to hear Harrow’s quickly-stifled moan of appreciation. _Well shit_ , if she got that kind of a response from just a little nipple action, maybe this would work out after all. 

Ever competitive, Harrow reached out Gideon’s hand, and Gideon felt the warmth of her fingers on Harrow’s bony and perpetually-chilly chest. And then…

 _Okay_ , Gideon noted away for future reference (though, she couldn’t have said why… she certainly had no intentions of ever touching Harrow’s tits, no matter whose body she was in), _Harrow’s nipples are way less sensitive than mine._

No wonder Harrow had reacted so strongly to stimulation of Gideon’s nipples, if this was the hardware she was used to working with. With Gideon’s fingers, Harrow brushed against her small, hard nipples in a perfect mirror of what Gideon was doing. 

A suspicion occurred to Gideon then. Looking for confirmation, she started making more deliberate, distinctive motions with her fingers, teasing her body’s nipples to rock-hard attention. 

Harrow copied those movements exactly, which sadly wasn’t having the same impact on Harrow’s dull nun body. Either it simply worked differently with Gideon in there, or…

“You’ve never done this before, have you?”

“Not… _manually._ ” Harrow admitted, after a moment. Gideon didn’t think too closely about ‘manually’, because thinking about Harrow getting fingered to sleep by a skeleton construct, or whatever the fuck it was she did, would be a complete boner-killer. 

“But you know what you like, right? And it isn’t what you’re doing right now?”

“Not precisely.”

“Well, get on with it then!”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Griddle.”

Being called ‘Griddle’ when she was buck-naked and had her hand on a tit (even her own tit) and she could feel fingers on her nipple (even if it was actually Harrow’s nipple), was more than a little disconcerting, but Gideon ignored that weirdness in favour of… _I should have known that Harrow was into some kinky bullshit!_

Again, _for no reason at all_ , Gideon filed this knowledge away for future reference.

“Look, I’ll tell you if it’s too much, but you’re not fucking _me_ \- you’re just wanking while I'm unavoidably in situ, and frankly, I think we’ll both prefer it if you think about me as little as possible right now.”

“Agreed.”

“So… go ahead.”

Gideon had every intention of studiously ignoring all the sensory input she was receiving from Harrow’s body, and focusing on the familiar process of jerking off, but the feeling of hands closing around her breasts, clenching tight, nails digging deep into the defenceless flesh, was completely unlike anything Gideon had ever experienced before. It was pain… but it was absolutely, _orgasmically_ wonderful. Gideon wasn’t sure if Harrow had messed around with her wiring, or whether she’d just always been a masochist, but Harrow’s body craved the intense purity of agony in a way Gideon just wasn’t equipped to process; before she could control herself, she’d arched Harrow’s back off the bed, letting out a wild moan which sounded just surreal in Harrow’s voice.

Harrow stopped, instantly.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No… I mean yes, but shit, Harrow. Don’t you dare fucking stop!”

Any pretence that this was a _totally platonic_ stress-relief exercise between two uninterested former-nemeses-now-TBC who happened to have accidentally switched bodies was completely gone.

Gideon’s own _personal time_ had always been very goal-oriented, and efficient. She’d even timed herself, and could reliably get from zero to post-orgasmic puddle in under a minute, if she didn’t feel like bothering with foreplay. 

Harrow, apparently, had taken her own experimentation down a completely different route, perhaps because her body naturally required more powerful stimulation, but Gideon figured it was probably mostly due to Harrow being a repressed nunlet who could only justify getting herself off if she included a hefty dose of penitence, self-flagellation, and shame.

Fuck. It was unexpectedly hot, and Gideon might be used to experiencing horniness in a different - and much less complicated - body, but she could sure as hell still recognise it. 

Harrow still hadn’t touched her again. Gideon was way beyond caring if she made things weird, or crossed lines that weren’t supposed to be crossed between a cavalier and necromancer. She’d been stuck in Harrow’s stupid, feeble little body for several frustrating months now, and dead - with no body at all for months before that. Prior to her death had been Canaan House, and there was no way Gideon was going to fuck herself with Harrow sleeping in the next room, so Gideon hadn't had a single wank since leaving Drearburh. After everything, that tiny slice of pleasure she'd felt when Harrow touched her had been like a drop of water to someone dying of thirst. She _needed_ more and she didn’t care what she had to do to get it. 

Gideon sat up, resenting the way that she had to lever herself off the bed with Harrow’s awful noodle arms, because Harrow’s body couldn’t manage even a single unaided sit up. She looked over at Harrow, who appeared to be carefully examining something on the exact opposite side of the room. Even after months, it was still weird to see Harrow’s eyes, and Harrow’s expression on Gideon’s face. 

Harrow’s expression right now was guarded, clinical, in odd juxtaposition to the hectic flush on her cheeks. 

“Harrow, _please,”_ Gideon begged. “You clearly know what this body likes, and believe me, it still likes it, even when you’re not in it. I am quite _literally_ dying for a fuck…”

“That’s not what ‘literally’ means,” Harrow muttered, and Gideon ignored her.

“...so just give me this. Okay? I promise I won’t be weird about it. I’ll never mention it again. I hate to pull the ‘ _I died for you’_ card, but I did? So you kind of owe me?”

“And I’m supposed to repay that blood debt by making you bleed?” Harrow whipped Gideon’s face around to stare straight at her, eyes narrowed with the kind of hurt that turns vicious. “What you’re talking about is a _punishment,_ not a reward.”

“You’ve never had a problem making me bleed before,” Gideon pointed out, in what she thought was a remarkably rational way, considering that 99 percent of her brain had taken up residence in Harrow’s cunt, and was refusing to come back without at least one orgasm. Harrow flinched.

“That was before.”

“Before what?”

“Just… before. Okay? I’m not having this conversation with you.”

“Yes you are.” Gideon knew it was cruel, but she was desperate, and sick of Harrow deflecting every attempt to discuss anything important, so she said, “ _please.”_

Gideon hadn’t realised it was possible to sag while lying down, but it was. Harrow wilted, seeming smaller, more fragile. 

“Before _what?_ ” Gideon pressed.

“Before you _left me_.”

Gideon thought this was an odd way to say ‘before you bravely and awesomely sacrificed yourself like a fucking hero to save me and Camilla from a ten-thousand year old bitch’. 

“I didn’t leave you…”

“Yes you did! You left me _alone!_ I never asked you to sacrifice anything for me, Gideon Nav. I never wanted you to care about me!”

Gideon thought that last bit might actually have been a lie, but this was more than she’d gotten out of Harrow in months of trying. 

“You’re angry, aren’t you?” She realised. Gideon didn’t know how it had taken her so long to puzzle this out, but Harrow was angry. Gideon had done something Harrow couldn’t control, and Harrow was scared, and when Harrow got scared, she got _pissed._

Whether it was fair or not for Harrow to be angry at Gideon for saving her life (and really, it wasn’t fair, but Gideon stopped expecting things to ever be fair before she’d even learned to walk), she was. 

“Yes,” Harrow admitted. 

“That’s perfect then,” Gideon realised.

“What?” Harrow sounded utterly taken aback.

“You’re mad, and I’m horny. It’s perfect. You can work out all your anger, and all your frustrations, and I get to see what sex is like in a kinky nun body. You can keep your claws to yourself when I’m in my own body, because that shit doesn’t work for me, but hell, Harrow, now I know the sort of stuff your body can do, you can’t expect me not to take it for a spin. It would be like me taking you to a mausoleum and not letting you touch a single bone.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“ _Fuck_ yes.”

Just as Harrow had seemed to wilt earlier, now she had become statue carved from granite, icy and impenetrable, still without moving a single muscle. 

“Then kneel.” Harrow snapped, in a voice of chilly authority which _did things_ to Gideon. She’d thought she was already as horny as it was humanly possible to be, but apparently she’d been wrong, and there were greater heights of horniness to aspire to.

Gideon climbed off the bed and fell to her knees as gracefully as she could in Harrow’s body. Without the cushioning pad of muscle, she felt the bones of her legs grinding against the cold stone floor, and she shivered. While she was still shifting around, trying to find the most comfortable way to arrange herself, Harrow appeared in front of her. 

“Hands behind your back.” She commanded. “I don’t want to tie you up, but I will if I have to.” 

Gideon clasped her arms behind her back, hand to elbow, with an automatic obedience she hadn’t known she had the capacity for. She opened her mouth to speak - she wasn’t sure what she was going to say, but that hadn't stopped her yet - but before she could get a word out, Harrow had pressed a finger to her lips, silencing her.

“No talking unless I give you permission.”

Gideon closed her mouth again.

Harrow circled Gideon, as Gideon struggled not to squirm under her scrutiny. In her own body, she wouldn’t have cared - she was hot, and she knew it - but in Harrow she felt vulnerable, and being naked for the first time ever in this body made her feel all the more exposed. 

When Harrow was standing in front of her again, she knocked Gideon’s knees apart with a foot, and before Gideon had time to react, she planted a swift kick to Gideon’s cunt. It was only a light impact, and Harrow had angled her leg so that she kicked with the flat top of her foot, spreading the force over a larger area, but for all of that, it was surprisingly painful.

The moment of contact was a burst of intense agony, and if Gideon’s arms hadn’t been clasped behind her, she might have lashed out, but a heartbeat later the pain faded, to be replaced by a glow, a heat, a tantalising sensitivity, and Gideon wished Harrow would do it again. 

Harrow’s cool poise cracked for a moment, letting just a hint of softness into her voice.

“Was that okay?”

“It was fucking amazing! _Harrow_ …” Again, Harrow put a finger to Gideon’s lips, cutting her off.

“Shh… If you need me to stop, you say red. If you need me to slow down, you say amber. If I ask how you are and everything’s good, you say green. If for any reason you can’t speak, then move. If you break position briefly without permission, then I’ll know that’s an amber. If you move and don’t get back into position, then that’s a red. Understand?”

Gideon nodded. 

“I know what that body can take, but I’ve never approached it from this angle before, and I have no way of predicting your reactions, so I’m trusting you to communicate if you need to. Otherwise, you keep your mouth shut and you stay still, or this stops. Can I trust you?”

Gideon nodded, vehemently.

“How are you?”

“Green,” Gideon couldn’t keep the pleading out of her voice. 

“Good girl.” It should have felt patronising. It didn’t. Gideon found herself sitting a little taller, holding her shoulders a little straighter. Harrow’s eyes narrowed with interest, and Gideon suspected Harrow had noticed the way she’d responded to the praise. 

If Gideon had hoped that Harrow would return her attention to Gideon’s cunt, she was disappointed. Instead, she reached out to run a hand through Gideon’s hair, that unruly hair growing out of Harrow’s scalp, which was already overdue for a cut, even though Gideon was sure it had only been a few days since the last one. The touch was gentle, but compelling, and Gideon was hyperaware of her scalp in a way she never had been before. 

Then Harrow grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked, and Gideon had to scrabble to regain her balance, only Harrow’s grip keeping her upright. Harrow used her leverage to tilt Gideon’s head back, until they were face to face. Harrow kissed her, and it was not a gentle kiss - Harrow sank her teeth into Gideon’s lower lip, until Gideon tasted blood, but _fuck,_ this was Gideon’s first kiss, and it was with Harrow… or, it was with herself, depending on how you looked at things. 

Gideon didn’t know how she felt about that, so she pushed thought away entirely, focusing on the sensations, the strange alchemy by which Harrow’s body converted pain to desire. Gideon’s legs were still spread, and the touch of cool air made her exquisitely aware of how hot her cunt was, and she longed to be touched, or at least to gain what little friction she could by pressing her thighs together, but she forced herself to stay still.

When Harrow ended the kiss, Gideon could feel that her lips were swollen, and they tingled with tiny, bright starbursts of pain where Harrow’s teeth had broken the skin. 

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted you on your knees,” Harrow breathed. She was right - Gideon had no idea, but suddenly, desperately wanted to know. _How long had Harrow been thinking about this?_

She almost asked, before she remembered that she wasn’t allowed to speak. 

As she had when she’d been faking her vow of silence, a whole lifetime ago, Gideon found that not being able to talk changed her experience of the world. That part of her brain which was always looking for the next pun or witty comeback had been rendered ineffectual, and so her thoughts were quieter than they usually were, as though a part of her hibernated. This was only magnified by Harrow’s other instruction, not to move. With no way of externalising her experience, or expressing her thoughts, Gideon became a locked room, a closed loop, everything building and building with to way to release the tension. 

“But for now I want you standing,” Harrow said. “Get up.”

Gideon discovered very quickly that Harrow’s legs didn’t have the strength or balance she needed to stand with her arms still behind her back. With Harrow’s hand wound in her hair, tugging her upwards, Gideon scrambled to her feet without much dignity, but as soon as she was standing, she clasped her arms behind her back again. After a moment’s thought, she also shifted her feet apart, so her legs were spread as they had been when she’d been kneeling.

“ _Good girl,_ ” it was almost a purr this time, and again Gideon found herself responding to the praise in a wholly unexpected way, a delighted flush running the length of her body, making her skin feel warm despite the chill of the room. “I think you deserve a reward.”

With no more warning than that, and exactly zero ado, Harrow had a hand between her legs. Gideon had fingered herself before, but those familiar fingers felt different pushing inside Harrow’s cunt. Gideon was pretty certain it was three fingers forcing her open, but she was achingly ready, and they met almost no resistance. 

Harrow fucked her with ruthless, almost brutal intensity. There was no finesse, no delicacy, and no teasing, just the fingers which seemed to push further into her with each thrust, and the familiar calloused palm rubbing over her clit with each stroke. 

Gideon felt a familiar coiling tension, and had just started to wonder whether Harrow’s slender legs would give out when she came, and then Harrow’s free hand came down in a sharp slap on her breast, the smack of skin on skin ringing shockingly loud in the hushed room. Gideon gasped, but didn’t object. As it had earlier, when Harrow had kicked her, the pain rapidly diffused into a tingling pleasure, but it was a distracting pleasure, and Gideon felt her orgasm slipping away, only to start building again as Harrow continued fucking her without so much as a break in rhythm.

How it was that Harrow could tell, every time Gideon got close to the edge, she had no idea, but she obviously did. Wielding sensations with near-scientific precision, Harrow kept Gideon balanced on the precipice for an incalculable blur of time; peppering her skin with scratches, slaps, bites, even punches, until it all merged into an incomprehensible wash of torment and arousal. 

Eventually another sensation broke through into her awareness. Her legs were shaking, the familiar muscle burn telling her she’d reached her limits.

“Amber,” she croaked out, surprised by how her voice cracked. It felt like she’d been screaming - perhaps she had. She wasn’t sure she would even have noticed. Harrow’s fingers withdrew, and Gideon felt their absence keenly, as though she’d been hollowed out. 

“What’s wrong?” Harrow asked, voice anxious, solicitous. “Was it too much?”

“No… ‘s amazing,” Gideon fumbled the words out, dragging her voice back from where she’d stowed it, to keep from speaking out of turn. “My legs…”

“Ah,” Harrow said in instant understanding. “You haven’t earned the bed yet, but perhaps…” she trailed off, looking around the room. “Yes. Go stand at the end of the bed.”

The bed was a four-poster, with sturdy columns at each corner. Gideon did as she was told, and the trembling in her legs eased as she leaned a little weight against the mattress which dug into her thighs. 

“Turn around,” Harrow instructed, and Gideon obeyed, turning to face the bed. “Arms as high as you think you can manage, and hold the bedposts. Legs apart,” she reminded, and Gideon hurried to comply. 

“I want you here for some time,” Harrow continued. “Can you hold it, or should I bind you?”

Gideon was not accustomed to admitting that there was any sort of physical challenge she wasn’t equipped to take on, but she knew the limits of Harrow’s body.

“Tie me.” 

Harrow rummaged in a drawer, and, _holy shit,_ emerged with several lengths of soft, well-worn rope. Gideon wasn’t sure how long she’d had them, or what she’d been intending, but now wasn’t the time to dwell on that. With surprising dexterity, Harrow quickly secured each of Gideon’s limbs, until she was spread and immobile. Gideon gratefully sagged into the bonds, letting her arms take some of her weight, as she watched over her shoulder, waiting to see what Harrow would do next.

“Eyes front.” Gideon turned to face forwards, looking out over the abandoned bed. She could still make out the impressions where they’d lain. Gideon’s skin prickled in anticipation, and she listened for any hint at what Harrow might be doing, but could discern nothing from the odd, quiet rustle, and the almost-silent pad of bare feet on the stone floor.

If Gideon thought that those long empty moments she spent untouched might have cooled the heat of her arousal, she’d been wrong. She felt as sensitive as if she’d been flayed, her nerves all exposed, each whisper of air across her skin a caress. She imagined that she could feel Harrow’s eyes on her, and the mental image of herself, bound and helpless, was unbearably hot, like something out of one of her magazines (even if, in her mind’s eye, Gideon inhabited her own body, not Harrow’s).

“Tell me how you’re doing,” Harrow whispered, and Gideon felt the heat of her breath, the brush of lips against her ear. She’d had no clue that Harrow stood so close, and a shudder ran down her spine. 

“Green,” 

“Good. You’re doing so well.” Gideon basked in the warmth of Harrow's praise.

When Gideon had suggested this, she’d been expecting something… violent, unrestrained. Something wilder and more vicious than this meticulous unravelling, this carefully measured manipulation of Gideon’s every response. This didn’t feel like Harrow expressing her anger; this was more about power, about control, and Gideon was surprisingly okay with that. She found that she _trusted_ Harrow - what had started with simple horniness, and a stubborn conviction that she could endure the worst that Harrow had to give, had morphed into something different, and Gideon found that she craved service the same way that Harrow seemed to crave control. 

What had galled her the most, through all her long months of death, had been Harrow’s refusal to accept her sacrifice and use the power Gideon had tried to give her. Now, Harrow was truly using Gideon, though it was in a way she’d never imagined, even in her most shameful fantasies. It was everything Gideon had ever wanted. 

With this new understanding, Gideon allowed herself to surrender at last, letting go of the last traces of resistance, and submitting utterly.

“I want to see just how far I can take you;” Harrow murmured, “remember you need to say if you want me to stop.”

Gideon said nothing, but tried to project willingness with each breath, each line of her body. Harrow moved away, and though Gideon had not felt her approach, she noticed now when the heat of her was gone.

_Smack_

Something heavy, and surprisingly soft hit her back with a thud, more weight than pain, and it was immediately followed by another stroke, and another. After a moment, Gideon managed to puzzle out what it was. After her unspoken thought earlier about self-flagellation, it turned out that Harrow genuinely did possess a flogger – or possibly two, judging by the speed of the falls. This came so close to some of the scenes in Gideon's most well-thumbed magazines that Gideon wondered whether Harrow had ever taken a peek...

And then she stopped thinking, sinking back into herself, feeling the rhythmic bowing of her body under each blow, the way the skin of her back was becoming more tender with each stroke. It didn't hurt yet, but she knew it would, and she was caught in a contradictory frenzy of fear and longing.

The force of the falls increased, and Gideon was almost grateful for this; she was so sensitive now that the lighter blows were a stinging agony compared to the deep, resonant thud when Harrow used a heavier hand.

Sounds came from Gideon's throat now, and she couldn't stop them. She could only pray that Harrow would not understand her inarticulate cries as speech, because she wasn't ready for this to stop. She didn't think she would ever be ready. Gideon was heady with pain and hormones, and she felt drunk, her limbs taking on the sort of diffuse slowness that Gideon remembered from Harrow's disastrous foray into wine.

The moments of pain were lasting longer now, fading slower, until each blow ran into the next, and there was no relief, only a mounting tension. Gideon's limbs were quivering-tight in their ropes, and she couldn't imagine what would happen when the tide within her broke. It was nothing like, but at the same time, exactly like those last moments before orgasm, when her entire self was winnowed down into a single point of pressure and need before bursting. But this was a tension Gideon didn't understand how to direct. Her cunt had been unstimulated too long, and so she just wound tighter and tighter, her whole sense of self dwindling until she was a tiny, imperceptible scream in a vast abyss.

At long last, the flogging stopped. Almost before Gideon had noticed, Harrow was behind her, the length of their bodies pressed together, and Gideon's abused skin was soothed by the cool softness of the body behind her, even as the pressure made it throb. Gideon was so small, in Harrow's body, and Gideon's own body was a comforting bulk; she leaned into it, let her head rest in the hollow of Harrow's throat.

“You're amazing, Gideon” Harrow breathed, sliding a hand around Gideon's hip, and between her legs. “You were so good...” Harrow kept up a quiet murmur of praise as she slid a finger inside Gideon, gentle now, as she hadn't been before, and even that delicate touch was enough to push Gideon finally, and utterly, over the edge. She thrashed in an orgasm unlike anything she'd ever felt before, her whole body contracting and clenching along with her cunt. Had it not been for the bonds around her limbs, the arms holding her tight, and the soft babble of kindness which Gideon was too far gone to take in, but which seemed to speak directly to her soul, Gideon wasn't sure she'd have survived the violence of her climax.

When her last shudders had stilled, and she hung limp, Harrow fell quiet for a few moments, and then she said, “you were exquisite, beloved, just _exquisite_. Are you back with me?”

“Green,” was all Gideon could manage.

“Good girl. You can speak again, when you're ready. I think it's time for me to take you to bed. You've certainly earned it. Lean against me while I untie you.”

With a solicitousness Gideon had rarely seen Harrow display before, Harrow released her, and laid her down in bed. Gideon felt cold, and started to shiver, but then Harrow was there, wrapping around her with welcome heat, and cocooning them both in blankets. Harrow gently stroked her hair, as Gideon nestled herself in closer, craving the heat and the contact. She felt as fragile as blown glass, but also totally safe in Harrow's embrace.

She started to cry, and she ducked her head, trying to hide the tears – as if Harrow wouldn't feel her sobs when they were wrapped together this way. She felt so stupid; why the hell was she crying, after the most mind-blowing orgasm she'd ever had, not to mention the _only_ one in well over a year? There was no way Harrow would do this again if she had to put up with Gideon weeping afterwards.

But Harrow didn't pull away, or ask Gideon to explain – which, Gideon absolutely could not have done – she only carried on stroking her hair. “You're fine, you're okay, just let it out,” Harrow murmured, before her words lapsed into gentle _shushing_ sounds. Gideon realised that, though she couldn't stop them from falling, her tears were not sad. For the first time, Gideon found that it was possible to cry with joy, and release, and relief. The circle of Harrow's arms were home, and Gideon knew that she would never need to feel lost again.


End file.
